Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

There is no denying the influence that Facebook has on the world and how we communicate, but the story that we first came across on Radio Praha really touched our hearts. Ladislava Schroderova didn’t know much about computers just a little over a year ago, but after hearing stories of families being reunited with loved ones on Facebook she set out on a mission to find her long lost son Jiri.

Ladislava was separated from her son in the 1980s when her estranged husband took custody of Jiri and defected to Austria. They eventually settled down in Canada, but Jiri never attempted to make contact with his mother because he was made to believe that his mother had died in a tragic car accident.

Over twenty years later, Ladislava created an account on Facebook and within minutes was able to find a profile of a young man with the English version of the name Jiri, George, that she was convinced was her lost son. She made contact with George and sure enough it was her son, but it took much persuasion to convince him that she was in fact his mother. Eventually George began to believe Ladislava was his mother and they started communicating via Skype. Fortunately, George was brought up speaking Czech and they were able to communicate without any issues.

Soon after, Ladislava and Jiri were reunited in Prague after more than twenty years apart. To celebrate their reunion, on a subsequent visit, George brought his girlfriend and proposed to her in Ladislava’s presence upon Prague’s Petrin Hill.

This story had such an overwhelming impact on us that we felt we should share this with our readers. Perhaps one of you will read this story and find inspiration to search for a long lost relative or friend.

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Nelze popřít, že Facebooku má vliv na svět a na to, jak komunikujeme, ale příběh, na který jsme poprvé narazili na Radio Praha nás opravdu zahřál u srdce. Před rokem paní Ladislava Schroderová nevěděla mnoho o počítačích, ale po tom, co se doslechla o tom, jak se lidé sblížili se svými blízkými na Facebooku, rozhodla se i ona vydat se na svou misi, aby našla dlouho ztraceného syna Jiřího.

Ladislava byla oddělena od svého syna v roce 1980, kdy její manžel získal opatrovnictví syna Jiřího a poté utekl do Rakouska. Nakonec se usadil v Kanadě, ale Jiří se nikdy nepokusil navázat kontakt s matkou, protože byl přesvědčen svým otcem, že jeho matka zemřela při tragické dopravní nehodě.

O více než dvacet let později si Ladislava vytvořila účet na Facebooku a během několika minut byla schopna najít profil mladého muže s anglickou verzí jména Jiří, George, o kterém byla přesvědčena, že to byl její ztracený syn. Rozhodla se ho kontaktovat a zjistila, že to opravdu to byl její syn, ale trvalo jí hodně přesvědčování, aby se i on ujistil, že byla ve skutečnosti jeho matkou. Jiří nakonec uvěřil, že Ladislava byla jeho matka a začal s ní komunikovat přes Skype. Jiří naštěstí mluvil česky, a tak byli schopni bez problémů komunikovat.

Brzy poté se, po více než dvaceti letech, Ladislava a Jiří setkali v Praze. Na oslavu jejich setkání, při jeho další návštěvě, se Jiří zasnoubil se svou přítelkyní v přítomnosti jeho matky na Petříně v Praze.

Tento příběh měl na nás ohromující dopad a cítili jsme, že bychom se o něho měli podělit s našimi čtenáři. Možná někdo z vás bude číst tento příběh a najde inspiraci k hledání dlouho ztraceného příbuzného nebo přátel.

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Source: http://www.radio.cz/en/article/128916

Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

Katerina Erlebachova, author of this story, is an expat living in Ireland. Even though the story is not related to the Czech culture, we believe it belongs on this site. It describes the world and people through the eyes of a Czech woman, who found inspiration while living abroad and meeting people that impact so many of us around the world.
We would like to thank you for the wonderful and inspirational story.

Liam´s present life

Living alone and independently in a small house in Galway, Liam regularly trains in the gym, does tai chi, goes swimming, and works with a large variety of therapeutic modalities. He flies regularly to London for chiropractic treatment. He is extremely disciplined in his diet which is mostly organic with a large percentage of those foods being raw and unprocessed.

He respects his own rhythm and does not interfere with the rhythm of others. He observes his discipline, has strong personal principles but does not expect to find the same in his surroundings. He also has the ability to appreciate the little everyday things like the good taste of salad, or hearing jazz, rock or classic music.

Inspiration

I have known Liam three years. His modesty, his sense of a special kind of humour and his way of being inspires me. Whenever I talk to him he always turns off the music he’s listening to so he can hear me fully. At the time when my English language wasn’t exactly the best he would sit with me and look up each word in different dictionaries to be sure that we understood each other as precisely as possible.

He never content with half-heartedness, he always had the patience to wait and then ask if I had really finished. At each interview he took time. When he talked to me, he looked me in the eye and always spoke for himself. If I remember correctly, I never noticed him use a cliché or complain about the weather.

In front of his house is a playground. Boys who play there occasionally kick the ball into his small garden. After that they knock on the door to be let in. I once witnessed such a situation, and when Liam’s head slowly bent down towards the boys to speak to them eye to eye, it felt like being in the fairy tale about a giant and children by Oscar Wilde. When I asked him how he does that, that the kids always obey him, he said to me: ´When you treat them with respect, they’ll reciprocate with respect also.´

Humour

In 2009 Liam has one of his cycling accidents. He crashed into a wall and was diagnosed with a fractured atlas bone (C1). After his release from hospital I met him on the street. His body was moving more slowly than usual. His neck was in a brace so that when he turned his head his whole body turned with it. I asked him how he felt. He told me with a very serious expression - which didn’t hide the unquenchable sparks in his eyes - that he was very angry because the doctors, fearing spinal damage, had removed his favourite cycling jacket by cutting it into pieces.
We could say that, just as the degree of temperature is named after the Swedish physicist and astronomer Anders Celsius, or the degree of an earthquake is named after the American seismologist Charles Francis Richter. Then a symbol for life energy might be called a ‘Liam’.

Welcome

The relentless process of Liam´s healing has cost Liam, his family, friends and supporters, lots of money, time, energy and patience. If you are interested in knowing about his life in more detail, or in supporting him in any way, you are invited to his website www.liamcullinane.com .

Interview

K: ´Liam, your story is very special. If you could use just one word to characterize yourself, what would it be ?´

L: ´Will´

K: ´You were in France and also in Africa with the Legion. You have been to the Himalayas, Australia and many other places. You have a brother living in Milan and another in Hobart.
You yourself are a Scot livingin Ireland. How many languages do you speak?´

L:´English & French.´

K: ´You’ve read a lot Liam. Is there any one book you return to?´

L: ´Path of the Masters by Julian Johnson.´

K: ´Are you thinking about your next photographic exhibition ?´

L: ´Yes, but just thinking for the moment.´

K: ´How long did it take you to learn to ride your special bike?´

L: ´It was a year before I felt confident on Tom’s four wheeler which because of its great weight provided me with the necessary stability and support.
Being so much lighter, the tricycles place much more demand upon my balance skills, or should I say, lack of.
In the first six months of using a tricycle I did not sleep properly, such was the apprehensiveness generated by the regularity with which I was falling off it. But now, even though the tricycle I am presently using is lighter again than the first one I had I feel confident on it. But saying that - I am still learning !´

K:´You like to travel. What other country that you have not already visited are you attracted to?´

L: ´I like eating too. It’s a pity turkey is rather tasteless. But Turkey itself, is one country that has always held an attraction.´

K: ´You have proven many times that you have the courage to do things which we ordinary mortals are afraid even to think about.Is there something that makes you feel fear?´

L: ´I’m an ordinary mortal too you know – no need to put me on a pedestal. To look at fear one must look at courage too. These two aspects of human nature are intertwined; they depend on each other just as with good and bad. For me I find that courage is not only the ability to hide fear in the face of adversity, but to deny to myself the very existence of fear. Fear is a state of mind. I tend to marshal the mind, and not to allow entry to the state of fear. So maybe I fear the loss of this control; it maybe that emotional expressions such as pain, loss and hurt, love and passion, represent a threat to it.´

K: ´What more do you have to achieve? What is calling you as a challenge?´

L: ´Other than shedding a single tear last year, I have not been able to cry since bidding a final farewell to my dying mother twenty two years ago. I suppose that was also my last really true emotional expression. Getting out that solitary tear was bloody hard work !! Perhaps that’s another aspect of my fear – crying; my next challenge.´

K: ´Is there a historical figure you particularly admire, with whom you identify? ´

L:´Hannibal, son of Hamilcar Barca. The Western World’s greatest ever military commander.´

K:´What would you change in the world, and also in your own life, if you had a magic power ?´

L: ´Such power would ultimately be destructive. I’m only human and therefore incapable of wielding it appropriately; but it would be good to make falling sliced bread land butter side up.´

K: ´On the contrary, what would you like to leave the way it is?´

L:´On the contrary you say, I thought everything was changing !Iron rusts; all those mesmerizingly beautiful flowers decay; we humans degenerate, die, and go the way of those flowers – we rot. Science calls this the universal principal of entropy: where, when left to their own devices, everything in the universe reaches a state of disorder - a state of maximum chaos - in which all the useful energy of those things dissipates. Probably not such a good idea to go messing with such power, such immensely magic power.´

K: ´Your mother was a very important person for you. Can you say something about her ?´

L: ´Norah was a strong woman. She brought light to many.´

K: ´What do you think is the greatest wisdom?´

L: ´The Jesuit priest Anthony de Mello is a good starting point. His book One Minute Wisdom is a collection of wisdom handed down through the ages.´

K: ´What word would you use to characterise your future ?´

L: ´Home´

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Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

Katerina Erlebachova, author of this story, is an expat living in Ireland. Even though the story is not related to the Czech culture, we believe it belongs on this site. It describes the world and people through the eyes of a Czech woman, who found inspiration while living abroad and meeting people that impact so many of us around the world.
We would like to thank you for the wonderful and inspirational story.

Three years ago I was slowly walking alone down an ancient street in Galway, a city in the West of Ireland. I had a mood that people in the Czech Republic call ’spleen’. A mood when the day feels grey and the mind wanders from nothing to nothing. My gaze drifted to the window of a health food shop and came across something inside that I couldn’t look away from. A very big guy leaning on crutches was laughing widely. I went inside for a moment to observe the situation. The man moved very slowly, then his body stopped shaking for a moment. I had to concentrate to hear what he was saying because his articulation was difficult to understand. When I realized what he was saying I was astonished. He was telling jokes, dallying with the salesgirls. I bought some healthy chocolate in the healthy shop. I went outside and ate it all up. It was irritating.

Why did I have spleen when this man, walking with crutches, had a sparkling humour and was as cheerful as the sun in the character of a gourmet who had just been offered a very good quality cognac? It started raining. I stood outside in the rain, glowering, my mouth covered with chocolate. I promised myself that I would find out his story.

From the beginning

Liam ´Jock´ Cullinane came into the world on the 16th April, 1967, in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, where he lived until 1979. Then his whole family moved to the Irish city of Galway. In 1976, he won first prize in the Tokyo International Art Competition. That showed his talent to always occupy the first position, which he probably inherited, together with a special light in his eyes, from his grandfather Harry, who was a British boxing champion in 1936. In 1985, after finishing secondary school, he entered the French Foreign Legion. He was eighteen years old…

About the Legion

With his experiences in the Legion, Liam obtained a wisdom that he shared with The Galway City Tribune in December 4th, 2009: ´That taught me that where the mind goes the body follow’. He had no idea then how this truth would help him later in another battle. As Liam himself expressed in an interview : ´I remember joining as a young boy back in 1985, and the awe these people inspired in me grew into a deep sense of respect as I matured. Extraordinarily fit, silent, strong, hospitable men. The Legion is like microcosm. Square pegs in square holes´.

He spent seven years in the Parachute Regiment based in Calvi in the incredibly beautiful island of Corsica. Two years of which were spent on regular tours to foreign locations. After serving four years in the Mountaineering Company where he gained a strong foundation in mountaineering skills, he entered the regiments’ elite Special Forces Unit where the acquisition of new skills such as scuba diving and skydiving continued. But most importantly it was here that his love of photography was further enhanced by the expertise he learned in the photography wing of this unit.

Trip to Himalayas

After leaving the Legion in July 1992 Liam decided to trek alone to the Mountains of the Nepal Himalaya. He photographed the country’s scenery, capturing its people and society. He was also thinking about where his life on the road would lead. Shortly after returning home at the end of 1992 he began a Commercial Diving course in Fort William, Scotland.

Change life?

On Friday the 23rd of April 1993 Liam had his last day at Diving School. He had been violently sick throughout the previous night and struggled with fever and a pounding headache as he completed the formalities of the final course paperwork. He thought it was just a very bad dose of the flu; and was planning to spend that weekend with his brother Harry in Edinburgh before continuing on with his life of adventure in some distant part of the globe. From that day however, life began to take Liam in a completely different direction.

When he returned to his flat that afternoon he slipped into unconsciousness. On Sunday the 25th of April, his landlady let herself into his flat assuming that Liam had already vacated it. She found him lying on the floor in a semi-conscious state. The apartment was thrashed because he had had violent seizures, and he had friction burns and bruises all over his body. He was taken to Fort William Hospital and from there to the Great Southern General Hospital in Glasgow. Through the performance of lumbar punctures it was confirmed that he had a rare form of meningitis called Listeria Monocytogenes Meningo-Encephalitis.

Open your eyes

After a fortnight he was stabilised and began to emerge from his coma. When he woke up he discovered that, with the exception of his right arm, he couldn’t move his body, and he couldn’t speak. But he doesn’t recall having any moments of depression or asking why this had happened to him. From his first moment of consciousness, he was totally focussed on getting well again. As family and friends began to visit him, Liam was given a board with an alphabet on it, and he spelt out what he wanted to say, letter by letter. Because of his tremors, it took him about 5 minutes to spell out 10 letters, by which time his visitors would often have forgotten the beginning of the word and they would ask him to start it again. His early attempts to brush his own teeth frequently resulted in his sticking the toothbrush in his eye, or giving himself a nosebleed.
What does it mean to have a brother with a big heart?

A big help for him was his brother Harry.

As Liam said:

´At that period Harry raised my spirits immensely. It was with him I mostly communicated and it was largely through him that I communicated with the outside world. As my closest brother – we grew up together – he knew me so well that often I didn’t need to speak for him to understand. During this time our relationship as close brothers strengthened – a bit like when we were boys.

Harry has a big heart. He asked me why did I have to go and get some damn meningitis that nobody else gets. He was great for making fun, which is a real boost when you are sick. All you want is a laugh and a little diversion.´ Harry also took him out into the hospital grounds. It was one of the best days in his life - he was out in nature again and he managed to move himself unaided from the wheelchair onto the grass - the first time that he was able to transfer himself independently.

Return

On 10th June 1994 he returned to his family home in Galway. At this stage he was walking with the aid of a walking frame but soon after that, with incredible will and great support from his family, he progressed to crutches. He also through relentless lessons with speech therapists learned to control his voice.
On November 21st 1997, at the Logan Gallery in Galway, his first photography exhibition, entitled Titanic, was opened. It included black and white and also colour photographs from the one of the most elevated and enigmatic countries in the world - Nepal.
In June 1998, Liam was nominated a ‘National Outstanding Person of the Year’ by the Irish Junior Chamber of Commerce in the category of ´Personal Improvement and Accomplishment´. The message from the Junior Chamber read that ´His struggle to return to a normal life has been tremendous´.

About bike

In 1994 Liam’s old friend Tom McEvoy built a specially adapted bike. He made three different versions before he got it right, and even then the third model required several modifications which meant it was well into 1995 before the bicycle was adapted correctly and Liam learnt how to ride it. In 2005 Liam started to use a tricycle.

The possibility to use his bike brought to Liam greater independence and the ability to manage his own affairs in the city centre. But even this move forward was not entirely without difficulties. Liam’s unusual bike was stolen several times.Once it was found in the canal in a very bad condition. Repairing it again and again cost him money and a lot of frustration and most crucially - time. It last happened in October 2009. But Liam’s mind is empty of vengeance. To the magazine that helped him in the search for the stolen bike he said ´I just want to get it back.´

Nothing is ipossible

In the year 2000 Liam did a tandem parachute jump in Australia. Afterwards he supported the organization ‘Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind’ by sponsored parachute jump.
In April 2007 Liam graduated with a degree of Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Humanities with Philosophy from The Open University. In November of 2008 he went on a round the world trip: his primary objective was to visit his brother Patrick in Australia, but he also took a large amount of photographs and investigated a variety of therapies unavailable in Ireland. He returned to Galway in July 2009.

I recently saw the film: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, directed by David Fincher. At the end of the movie is an epilogue, which says:´Some people are born to sit by the river

“Some are struck by lightning
Some have a deep knowledge of Shakespeare
Some have an ear for music
Some people are mothers
Some people are familiar with the buttons, and some people are dancing.”

The man about who I am writing was born to be better and better. Here is question: ´Must we have a grandfather who is a champion boxer, to prove that we can do the impossible? Or is it enough when we just have believs in the depth of the connection between mind and body? Liam probably has both.

To be continued… 

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Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

This year’s month of March did not treat our community overly kindly. The row of friends to whom we said good bye this March is longer than other years. Quite a number of us gathered the last day of the month in Montreal to attend a somewhat different funeral: we lost a consulate. And this was not a run-of-the mill consulate. Which is not to suggest that the Czech Republic (and before that Czechoslovakia) ever had in Canada an unusually high number of consular establishments. But the Montreal consulate had much closer ties ties with the Czech (and even more Czechoslovak) history, than is usually the case.

What goes for the Montreal consulate, goes equally for the City of Montreal: it was in Montreal where in 1924 a group of immigrants from Czechoslovakia - mostly Slovaks - established Československý podpůrný spolek (Czechoslovak Mutual Benefit Society); it was in Montreal where in 1929 two newspapers commenced publication: Slovenské Bratrstvo (Slovak Brotherhood) and Kanadské noviny (Canadian Newspaper) - /the first Slovak newspaper in Canada, Slovenské slovo (Slovak Word), was published in Blairmore, Alberta in 1910/. Beginning with the thirties of the last century, until the outbreak of the separatist movement in Quebec in the seventies, Montreal was probably the most important Czech and Slovak centre in Canada. All we have to look at are the events responding to the Munich crisis: the largest protest against the Munich agreement in Canada took place in Montreal on October 2, 1938 (a date we’ll revisit shortly) when some 4,000 gathered to voice their opposition. Because Montreal is still an important community centre today with many activities taking place, I will mention only three happenings from the post-thirties period which tinkled in my heart: the famed Montreal bazaars - not only because the proceeds were helping the sick and the poor - but also because of the unexpected sponsor (or better, organizer) of this annual happening - Vaclav Vlček, a retired general of the Czechoslovak army; the Seniors Club, founded and for many years presided over, by the indestructible Václav Pavelka, who finally departed this planet in the year 2002, at the age of one hundred-one and one-half years; and Cardinal Josef Beran sawing wood at Camp Hostýn with Father Bohuslav Janíček.

On October 2, 1938, an event took place in Montreal which appears to me pleasantly resourceful in a very Czech way: there is in it an element of courage, probably an echo of Švejk (the finest echo that Švejk might be capable of producing), but most of all, a flash of extraordinary brightness. What happened was that the then Consul-General of Czechoslovakia, Dr. František Pavlásek, flanked by a couple of Sokols and a few members of RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) refused to hand over the consulate to the Nazi diplomats who came to claim it. I know that some people describe this happening as a heroic act. I must admit that I don’t smell heroism in Dr. Pavlasek’s action (after all it happened practically in the centre of Canada and the few Nazis hardly constituted a formidable threat to Dr. Pavlásek and his praetorian guard. The occasion simply didn’t offer the necessary ingredients for heroism. (It would have been much different, if someone tried to stop Hitler from entering the Prague castle). Rather, I see this happening as an ingenious reaction to the arrogance of Hitler’s diplomats, who in their haughtiness assumed that by the Munich agreement everything Czechoslovak had become the property of the empire which was supposed to last a thousand years, and simply marched to the Czechoslovak consulate to kick out the present occupants and collect the keys.

Obviously, they did not inform themselves as to the quality of their adversaries. And so, when they knocked on the door of the consulate, they were met by the steely resolve of Dr. Pavlásek, backed by a couple of sturdily-built members of Sokol and the imposing figures of the members of the RCMP, none of them showing the slightest desire to accommodate the German diplomats. And so, all they could do, was to retreat as whipped dogs. (Sometimes such a retreat - in the case of dogs - is described more colorfully, but such description might be inappropriate when applied to humans). What I am attempting to say is that the victory of Dr. Pavlásek and his cohorts might not be of the same importance as the victory at Zborov, but it certainly was an admirable triumph of wit over force, an act which deserves a place of honor in the annals of the Czechoslovak diplomacy.

And it was Dr. Pavlásek’s consulate (the historic one, not the building) we said good bye on March 31, 2010 (a good bye, just as the symbolic one two days later, was recorded in the media by Ladislav Křivánek). Mr. Křivánek first tried to do everything possible and even impossible (one of his many assistants was the 96 years old Anka Votická, who collected 51 signatures against the closing of the consulate) to prevent the closure. The last consul general, Ing. Jaroslava Jeslinková, fought for the consulate with all the decent weapons at her disposal (those used by her long-ago predecessor were not available to her). She said good bye to the people present at the closing ceremony in a dignified and highly civilized speech, after delivering awards for working many years for the good name of the Czech Republic (and in many cases also the Czechoslovak Republic), to Josef Janík, Ema Košacká, Ladislav Křivánek, Líba Prášilová, Standa Skála, Olga Velanová and Anka Votická. Růžena Raichmanová and Alois Vogl received their awards before Christmas 2009.

The ceremony was also attended by the Honorary Consul of the Slovak Republic, Ing. Dezider Michaletz and Mrs. Michaletz, and Prof. Dr. T.J. Pavlásek, (the son of the Consul General and subsequently the Czechoslovak Ambassador to Canada, Dr. František Pavlásek). Zuzana Hahn and myself came from Toronto.

Author: Josef Cermak (CzechFolks.com PLUS)

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Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

Author: Josef Cermak (CzechFolks.com PLUS)

1.
Q.: When did you emigrate to Canada and why? Was it entirely for political reasons? And why Canada?

A. I left Czechoslovakia (on my knees, secretly, “over the hillocks”) with my blacksmith friend Lada Dufek on October 28, 1949 (we were selfishly counting on the police raging in Prague). ‘Our’ ship, ‘U.S.A.T. Le Roy Eltinge’ arrived in Canada (in Halifax) on April 23, 1949. That ship wasn’t completely ‘ours’ but we Czechoslovaks formed a formidable group: 113 people. A ‘volunteer’ historian of the group (and also a Sokol historian - his ‘ Sokol - Small history of a great idea’ is published by his publisher AtelierIM in Luhacovice), Jan Waldauf, fifty years later found addresses of 61 still living 1949 seafarers. Many of them will leave behind a distinct legacy - beside Jan Waldauf, there is, for example, Jiri Brandys, who helped to change the face of Halifax; soldier Jaroslav Kasanda holds the highest military award, the Order of Military Merit; three men (Lub. Kolibac, Antonin Petrasek and David Kroulik) graduated in medicine and Svatopluk Tomanek in dentistry; Jan Matejovic founded a very successful import firm (and is one o the most generous philanthropists), Jaroslav Pouzar built up a prestigious bakery, others opened shops and businesses (Jan Marr, Frantisek Surovec), all lived decently successful lives and none ended in jail.

But back to your question: I come from a small farm and I know how hard life was in the country, when you didn’t have money to buy insurance and hail destroyed your harvest. But I also remember (as do almost all who lived in that era) how sweetly life tasted in Masaryk ;s Czechoslovakia. I remember the incredible unity of the nation during the mobilization in 1938, at the time when the threat of Hitler’s madness hanged in the air and the allies slipped away into the night. For a while after the war it looked that we might resume Masaryk’s traditions. Unfortunately, the Communist party, a stooge of Moscow (no one denies the immense contribution of the Russian people in the war with Hitler’s Germany) had different plans. Their conception of life was something I couldn’t swallow. I took part in the student anti-Communist demonstrations in Prague in February 1948 as well as the march to the castle. Just before the march I witnessed something I will never forget: Vladimir Krajina’s speech in the Municipal House (the first meeting of the Action Committee of the ‘re-vamped’ National Front took place one storey bellow us): by then it was clear that the Communists had won, that the democrats had lost; but Krajina, one of he most heroic figures of our history, spoke about the victory of freedom, spoke about his face in his nation and captivated his audience (it still chills my spine) as Kennedy did when he asked his people not to ask what their country can do for them but what they can do for their country…Then I witnessed the liquidation of the farm sector and the village - in my view one of the ugliest crimes committed by the Communist party against our nation. In September 1948 I attended with a group of friends from my village Benes’s funeral in Prague. We were all arrested and spent the next couple of weeks at the Pankrac jail. After the release I had two options: flee the country or let them kill me because (in matters which matter), my soul refuses to bend. And so, on October 28, 1948 my friend Lada Dufek and I crossed the border (not everyone was that lucky - they had guns and dogs) to the West Germany. So it probably can be said that I left Czechoslovakia for political reasons. In Germany, I spent some time at several refugee camps: Regensburg, Murnau, Ludwigsburg. In Ludwigsburg, there actually were several camps, and our community even founded there a university.
 
I met a man there who was to become a good friend of mine, the printer Jaroslav Reichl (prior to the Communist coup d’etat Reichl held the position of the director of a Warnsdorf printing shop, where he printed noble editions of fine books, such as Brezina’s poems, with marvelous illustrations). Reichl (We all called him ‘dad’) found a job as a printer and managed to get a job for me as a helper. In the shop (and all around) I saw the positive qualities of the German people: they worked ten hours a day, often on a diet of a piece of bread. I chose Canada, because Canada was looking for workers on her farms and in the forest and guaranteed the fastest exit from the refugee camp.

2.
Q.Your beginnings in Canada - how did it go? Was it difficult to get started? How long did it take before you felt in Canada well enough to call her your home?

A. My first job in Canada was on the farm, then in the vegetable garden of the TB sanatorium in London. In winter, I got a job inside the sanatorium as an orderly (maybe because sick people - unless they are totally disgusted by the process of dying -are among the kindest people in the world), seldom in my life did I feel at work so at peace with myself as I did in the London sanatorium. After the end of my first year in Canada I worked for a short period at the office of Karel Buzek, who - particularly during the war - did in Canada an unbelievable amount of excellent work for Czechoslovakia and today a lovely room at the University of Toroto is named after him. It was thanks to him that within a few weeks I got a job as an assistant at the Toronto Public Library, where I worked some four or five years. When I came to the conclusion that a return home in a near future was unlikely, I decided to go back to school. I left Czechoslovakia with the JUC degree (Candidate in law). not very useful in Canada and an equally useless ‘absolutorium’ (a certificate that you practically completed all requirements}, but they did help a little: the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto offered to admit me to the first semester, provided - because I never studied English - that I successfully complete the first year at the Faculty of Arts. And then something happened I still consider one of the deepest mysteries of the last hundred years: I stood first in English in my year at the University College and received a beautifully named award: the ‘Panhellenic Prize’. Partial explanation: the mark is given mainly for essays on English literature and I always loved to read - English literature in Czech translation (we always had exquisite translators or rather interpreters): Vrchlicky, Sladek atd.}. During the summer vacation that followed I worked as a sleeping car porter, and after the vacation, I enrolled at the Faulty of Law (and during the winter and summer vacations I worked at the C.N.R. (o was it C.P.R?). And if until then I suffered from a killing home-sickness ( beautifully described, among others, by Cicero), after commencing my studies I had time for nothing but my studies and work. And before I knew it, I was beginning to feel in Canada if not fully at home, then at least as a visitor with a favorite aunt.

3.
Q Did you follow the events after February 1948, particularly the faked processes and then the year 1968, the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the armies of the Warsaw Pact?

A. During the first months of the Communist regime I - and I am sure many other people - felt similar to what the protestants must have felt after their White Mountain defeat. The civilizing effort of generations was destroyed in a few days by a horde of Stalin’s hoodlums. We weren’t saved even the worst, something similar to the executions at the Old Square centuries ago: Heliodor Pika (hanged in January 1949), Milada Horakova (hanged on June 22, 1950, unburied)… We, who were already out of the reach of the Communist police, followed Horakova’s trial with horror: could our people really do anything this awful? But we also followed her trial with a humble admiration for the heroism of this woman (and also with a feeling of shame, that we deserted) when she made her final statement: “I believe in freedom and equality for all. Does that make me a traitor? I oppose the so-called Peoples’ Democracy in the Czechoslovak Republic, for I hold it is not democratic.

I have worked against it. Should a miracle occur and I be released, I should work against it anew.” Among those who followed her trial in a refugee camp in Germany was her husband and Jiri Corn. Every time I subsequently met Dr. Horak I always imagined him listening to the death sentence pronounced against his wife and something in me died. After Jiri Corn came to Toronto, we founded Milada Horakova Club and on July 2, 1953 held a commemorative service at the Museum Theatre. The guest speaker at the srvice, Member of the Canadian Parliament, Margaret Aitken, had this to say: “When this century comes to its close, Dr. Milada Horakova will be a legend and one of the century’s immortal names.” Two years ago, the Centre for European, Russian and Euroasian Studies at the University of Toronto and the Consulate General of the Czech Republic in Toronto, presented a seminar on Dr. Horakova’s trial, addressed by a leading expert on this unforgivable crime, Marek Janac. Mr. Janac was introduced by the Consul General, Mr. Richard Krpac. At the end of the seminar, Dr. Horakova’s dughter, Jana was presented by the Masaryk Prize of the Czech and Slovak Association of Canada, awarded to Dr. Milada Horakova in memoriam.

We shared your joy whenever we saw the smallest shred of hope and when the spring of 1968 arrived, I was picked (as the youngest and a bachelor to boot) by a group representing various Czechoslovak organizations in Canada to travel to Prague and have a look at that ‘Prague spring’ {as the future proved, that was my only trip home during the 40 years of the Communist regime). First, I travelled to Bratislava to lay a wreath (with Czech and Slovak Association o Canada, Sokol Canada and Masaryk Institute bands) - joined by the father of a well-known Slovak politician living in exile in Canada, Rudolf Frastacky, at the Stefanik monument at Bradlo. Bratislava was full of Russian soldiers - at Cierna nad Tisou Brezhnev was engaged in fateful talks with Dubcek. In Peague, I visited the author of the famous ‘2000 words’ letter, Ludvik Vaculik. Vaculik told me that he had just returned from Cierna and that “it was hanging on a threat”; that Dubcek misled his comrades by insisting that the Soviet Union would not interfere in Czechoslovakia and because he spent large part of his life in the Soviet Union, his comrades took his views very seriously. He also advised me to have fun and not to spend all my time in Prague on politics. Next, I visited Madame Benes in Sezimovo Usti , where I lay a wreath on the grave of her husband. Madame Benes was very optimistic, she didn’t expect a Soviet intevention and had great faith in the young generation (she particularly liked Cestmir Cisar). In Lany I lay a wreath on Masaryk’s grave wirh a band proclaiming, ‘Loyal We Remain’. A few days after my return to Toronto (on August 21 in fact) I was awakened shortly after midnight by Slava, the daughter of Jiri Corn the then secretary-general of the Czech and Slovak Association of Canada). Slava brought me her father’s message that the Warsaw Pact armies invaded Czechoslovakia and that in the morning we were going to take the first plane to Ottawa, to meet with members of the Canadian cabinet.

On the plane to Ottawa I prepared a short request to Canadian government. It had two main points: that Canada condemns the invasion of Czechoslovakia at the United Nations; and that it accepts the largest possible number of Czechoslovak refugees, who were pouring particularly into Vienna (the Communist government was not trying to stop them-it was getting rid of the most dangerous opposition). I did not attend the meeting with the members of the Canadian cabinet - there were quite a few of us and I didn’t want us look as a pedestrian invasion.

After return to Toronto, we organized a mass protest at the City hall. I was one of the speakers. I ended my remarks with a few rather bitter-sweet woeds: “If we cannot send our tanks against the Soviet tanks, let us at least rededicate ourselves to the high ideals of liberty, let us demand with an ever stronger and more persistent voice freedom for all. For our voice is heard behind the Iron Curtain, and an ever stronger echo is coming back. One day that echo will gather the force of a hurricane, against which Soviet tanks shall not prevail.”

The Canadian cabinet of Pierre Elliot Trudeau fulfilled its promise: it admitted to Canada - within a few months - more than ten thousand of Czechoslovak refugees…

4.
Q.: How do you see the Czech Republic today? Do you think that - more than twenty years after the revolution - the Czech Republic is a truly democratic country?

A. From outside, the political life in the Czech Republic looks like chaotic vulgar theatre. That’s the way political life probably looks in every democracy, but in the Czech Republic that impression is particularly strong. If the main distinction of a democracy is a right to elect its government, then the Czech Republic is a democratic state. I don’t know If it really is a democracy because I don’t know how you define democracy. It worries me to hear so many reports of corruption even in the areas where it seldom appears in more developed countries, such as the police and even among judges. I hear that former members of the Communist party are using every means to get back to power and grab every important position. Not surprisingly, to many of us the appointment of a former Communist as the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic only twenty years after the fall of the brutal regime installed by the Communist party, seems almost grotesque. So, my most pessimistic view of the history of my native land since the fall of the Communist regime, looks like this: my country lost one-half of its territory, the crimes and injustices of the regime were forgotten, we managed to keep in place for the Communist party its political base, we joyfully practice scandals (sex scandals - which after all is a popular activity of politicians and other celebrities all over the world - but also other scandalous behavior, such as pilfering national property, enriching ourselves with an assist from our political party, manufacturing doctorates in law.) But when I happen to have enjoyed a good night sleep, I see everything much more favorably: after the fall of the regime, lamp-posts were not adorned with victims of a just wrath; the Slovaks and the Czechs split - be it against their will - quite peacefully and on the whole are managing their affairs no worse than most of the until yesterday brotherly nations (which, while in brotherly union, displayed from time to time a tendency to occupy one or the other of their brothers); our political life is so rich that one of our parties (until the Munich disaster, one of the two most important supporting pillars of the Czechoslovak state, and later - and still? - the most loyal comrade of the Communists), forced the resignation of the government of the other party at a time when that government had a chance to make the country shine in the international fimament; the party which made the country a Soviet vassal, started to plan the next presidential election, which are still three years away…

And, of course, it’s easy for me to write all this - thousands of miles away.

5.
Q. Do you follow the political and cultural life in the Czech Republic because it interests you or because it is (was) your work?

A. I follow the political and cultural life in the Czech Republic because it interests me - a bad habit I developed when I was a student at the Slany Latin school. If by work you mean a paid occupation, it never was my work but because I participated in Czechoslovak organizations in Canada, my interest continued as a matter of course.

6. How have you perceived the 1968 emigration wave? Do you, personally, see differences between your emigration wave and the emigration wave after 1968?

A. The 1968 emigration wave differed - in my view - quite significantly from ours. In my wave were quite a few older people who were leaving because all they could expect at home was either jail or a poor existence. Abroad - because of their age alone - all they could expect was also a poor existence (in Toronto I saw heads of departments work as cloakroom attendants, what in the end, was a fate much kinder than the destiny woven for himself by Halas) and had to be endured in a tongue not their own, but it was a poor existence in freedom and that for Masaryk’ disciples wasn’t an easy card to trump. University students represented another large group. Many of them left their country hours (and sometimes minutes) before being arrested. And, most understandably, politicians (of the noncommunist variety) some of whom managed to get help from various American organizations and a number of them found jobs at universities. This was, largely, an emigration of men of ideas, rather than of pragmatic people.

The 1968 wave was motivated more by practical considerations than ideas. Most of them didn’t plan their exodus, they left because the Russians and allies invaded their country, which they didn’t like, and also simply because the borders had suddenly and unexpectedly opened and they exploited an unrepeatable opportunity. Some of them simply collected all the goodies they could buy or receive as gifts, and returned home, others became exiles. Among them many professionals - some one hundred medical doctors, engineers and smart people who after coming to Canada discovered that they were gifted entrepreneurs. Some of them told me: their life back home wasn’t bad, they earned good money, had cars and summer cottages. When I asked them why they left, several responded : “We didn’t want our children to grow up in a world of lies.” They left me with this picture of their life before the invasion: the regime allowed the citizens of the country to own cars and cottages and the people let the regime govern as it pleased. Maybe this is another application of the principle that after a while the kidnapped begin to identify themselves with the kidnappers.

7.
Q. How do you see the last wave of immigrants, largely Roma families? Do they have a chance to assimilate into the Canadian lifestyle the way you did? Are they able to respect the local culture?

A. The first major wave of Romas arrived in Canada in 1997. The main spokesman for the Czech an Slovak community in Canada was the Czech and Slovak Association of Canada, in which in 1997 I had the misfortune of holding the office of the Secretary-General. We were right in the middle of it. The Romas described the Czech Republic as a land of racists, who discriminated against them, beat them up and from time to time killed a few of them. The Czech television station Nova made a film Romas go to heaven, featuring among others the Canadian Roma lawyer , George Kubes and an old Roma lady who towards the end asked Romas in the Czech Republic to come to Canada, where they would have everything and still save. Our people were understandably upset. The Canadians (at least the very kindhearted and Canada has quite a few of those) tended to side with the Romas. The Czech and Slovak Association of Canada sent a letter to the then Minister of Immigration, Lucienne Robillard, in which we mentioned the controversial value of the film, pointed out the questionable interpretation of the term ‘refugee’ and also alluded to George Kubes.

George Kubes sued the Association and its leadership, the President Blanca Rohn, myself, Suchma, Masaryk Institute, the journalists Ales Brezina, Vera Rollerova etc..It never reached the trial stage. But that is a long story. The Canadian newspapers and television joined the scuffle and Blanca Rohn, as president of the Association .was in demand on all sides. Simply a great show. Practically every Roma who asked for asylum got it. Until Canada decided to require visa from all visitors from the Czech Republic. Some months ago, the requirement was discontinued and the Romas fell in love with Canada again. And the visa requirement is back. And the Canadian immigration boards now see things differently and the Romas are having difficult time to be recognized as refugees. There are other factors: more than one-half of them returned to the Czech Republic . There are no doubt Romas capable of assimilation into the Canadian life. The majority not. I was most interested in the interaction between the Roma genes and the Canadian schools (in the areas where the Roma children attend school, most of the kids are colored). I am - looking from the point of view of the Canadian schools - not very optimistic. Nor do I know whether the Romas respect the Canadian culture (what is Canadian culture is a complex question). I think they probably ignore it.

8.
Q. How do you think Canadians perceive people from the Czech Republic? Many interesting, elite people emigrated to Canada, Mr. Bata. Mr Skvorecky and many others. Have they influenced the way our nation is seen? Have they made us more visible?

A. Before I even attempt to answer your question, I must observe that terms like “Canadians”, but also “people from the Czech Republic” are heavily loaded. “Canadians” are simply people who live in Canada. You find here practically every ethnic group - I read somewhere recently that every ethnic group in the world has in Toronto its own restaurant. When I arrived here sixty years ago, Toronto was a white, largely Anglo-Saxon city. Today, not only this city isn’t Anglo-Saxon, but most of the Torontonians are colored people. In Canada, you find tens, hundreds of thousands of Muslims, Jews, black people, Chinese, Poles, Ukrainians, , Indians, most of whom don’t think about the people from the Czech Republic anything mainly because it is not a subject they contemplate. If they meet a person from the Czech Republic, they may form an opinion about him or her.. And that opinion depends on the person from the Czech Republic (and even there you today find different nationalities) they happen to meet. At one time many people knew (and by now probably largely forgot) the name ‘Havel’; as long as the Bata company made shoes in Canada and had a shoe store in every little town, people knew the name ‘Bata’. but not necessarily where he came from; today the company no longer makes shoes in Canada and the name ‘Bata’ disappeared from all stores, only a first-class shoe museum in Toronto bears his name and I believe, an endowment at the York University; Skvorecky is known to elite readers and to the academia. Musicians and singers such as the composer Oskar Morawetz, Karel Ancerl, Jan Rubes live in the memory od their listeners, scientists such as Vladimir Krajina gave name to a piece of Canada (a large forest reserve in British Columbia bears his name). Jozo Weider founded the largest ski centre in Ontario.

The entrepreneurs, the brothers Koerner (Otto, Theodore, Leon and Walter) from Hodonin founded the Alaska Pine Company and their charity changed the face of the University of British Columbia and profoundly enriched the cultural life in Vancouver; A, Karel Velan owns factories on several continents and his industrial valves are used by- among others - the USA Navy. Tens of Czech scientists of famous names teach at Canadian universities, particularly at McGill in Montreal; Czech hockey players are greatly admired. All of them (and thousands of others all over Canada) left their ‘Czech’ imprint on the Canadian landscape, but this imprint is often on the surface, like a newspaper or television ad. The imprint which goes to the marrow is not the fame or success we may have reaped; it is who we are, how we touch other people in their everyday life. I often think that the deepest imprint was left by those who came to Canada in the twenties and thirties of the last century to work on the farms and forests, as housekeepers and nannies, the ‘hungry generation’ , whose traces I have found in many places across Canada. The traces of good, honorable, hard working people.

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Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

Author: Josef Cermak (CzechFolks.com PLUS)

This remarkable story really began in 1921, when guided by J. J. R. MacLeod, Frederick G. Banting and Charles H. Best isolated from the pancreas the hormone later called insulin and discovered its use in treatment of diabetes. Collip, a visiting Canadian professor, purified insulin so that it could be given to diabetic patients. For this discovery Banting shared with MacLeod the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. Banting died in 1941 in a plane crash while on route to England on a medical war mission. That year Best, who at that time served as associate director of the Connaught Laboratories (where a few years later - and this constitutes the first, very indirect connection suggested in the title of this article - Mikuska Perinova worked as a technician on the development of the Salk polio vaccine) was appointed director of the Banting and Best Department of Medical Research at the University of Toronto. There was depression in various members of the family and his omission in awarding the Nobel Prize may have later contributed to his severe depressions.

Twelve days before Mladen’s eleventh birthday (1941) the Croatian fascists (Ustase) entered the Croatia with the help of German Nazis. Mladen’s racial background could eventually condemn him to death without trial. Later, he realized that this fate would be similar to the novel, “The Trial” by the great Czech writer, Franz Kafka. Mladen was, however, “lucky” to have escaped with his family and spent some time in Italian concentration camps and finally was safe in the Italian city Taranto, which was under occupation of the Allied forces.

Mladen was born in Zagreb, Croatia, received his M.D. in 1955 and seven years later his D. Sc. degree (equivalent of Ph.D) from the University of Zagreb. For one year, he was a medical soldier in the communist Yugoslav army. He loved to read the famous Czech novel, “Vojak Sveik”, which helped him adjust to the eternal absurdity of being a soldier. He was outdistanced by a few years in Czechoslovakia by Anna and Otakar Sirek, who graduated in medicine at the Slovak University in Bratislava in 1946. Anna (not yet named Sirek} and Otakar dueled for the top marks during their high school years and continued at the Medical School. Practically, every time they shared the honors. They also fell in love. In Czechoslovakia, the student who graduated with Summa Cum Laude, received from the President of the Republic a golden watch with an appropriate inscription. Anna and Otakar planned to marry because the Dean of the Law School advised them to get married before graduation: in Roman law husband and wife were deemed one person and if Anna and Otakar got married and both finished medicine with Summa Cum Laude, both would receive the presidential gift. After graduation they left to do some postgraduate work in Stockholm.
That was already in 1948, thus they decided not to return back to the Czechoslovakia. Otakar published a number of articles, some of them in English and one of them caught the eye of Professor Best in Toronto, who offered Otakar a job in the Best and Banting Institute. Otakar accepted and was joined there some years later by his wife who spent her first years in Toronto at the Sick Children Hospital. Both had a distinguished career, received many awards and were the only married couple included in the Toronto Star series Superstars of Science.

Mladen started his own meteoric career in Zagreb. In the early sixties he attended a scientific diabetes conference in Geneva. That conference was also attended by Anna Sirek from Toronto. Mladen wished to come as a post-doctoral fellow to Toronto - a world centre in diabetes research. However, there was no position available. It took Anna a few months to persuade professor Best to invite Mladen to come to Toronto. During communism, Mladen could go to Toronto, but he couldn’t take his wife and his child, until the Prime Minister of Croatia, Savka Daplevic, who was a patron of Mladen’s mother’s beauty salon, intervened. In Toronto, he scaled the scientific Olympus in magnificent style: in 1965 appointed an Assistant Professor (and in 1972 Professor), Physiology, University of Toronto became member of the Institute of Medical Sciences, in 1977 member of Division of Endo. Metab. at the Toronto General Hospital; 1978 appointed Professor of Medicine, University of Toronto, and later became Chair of this famous department of Physiology; 1981 - 1993 chaired Commission on National and International Relations, Banting and Best Diabetic Centre; organized and chaired/co-chaired numerous national and international symposia including, in 1977, the first global conference on exercise and diabetes and in 1996 - to commemorate 75th Anniversary of Discovery of Insulin, he Chaired the joint University of Toronto/Karolinska/Joslin Centre - Harvard Symposium on Perspectives in Diabetes Research.

Prof. Vranic is the author of 280 publications, editor/co-editor of 9 conference proceedings or books and impacted over 8000 citations. He is the recipient of so many awards and honors that they crowd two walls in Mladen’s office in the Medical Sciences Building in Toronto. You will find there his MD (Hon.) from Karolinska Institute Medical Faculty (1992) (one of two Canadians in 200 years of the institute); Mladen is the only Canadian to receive the most prestigious world diabetes awards; the Banting Medal for scientific achievements (1991); the Albert Renold Award for distinguished service in the training of diabetes research scientists (2005); from the American Diabetes Association, the Canadian Diabetes Association Inaugural Life-Time Achievement Award (2007); Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (Academy of Arts and Science), (Canadian Academy of Health Sciences), and he is a corresponding member of the Croatian Academy of Health Sciences. Recently, he has been appointed to the board of the Japanese Academy of Sportology. Mladen is also a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. His most important recognitions in Canada are Laureate of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame, and this year he obtained the Order of Ontario, which is the highest recognition for outstanding contribution and achievements in the Province. He also received the inaugural Mizuno award from Japan. Mladen is a Visiting Professor, University of Zagreb and Stockholm, and lectured worldwide, including the R. Kroc Lectureship series, University of Southern California.

And so we get to the last connection between Dr. Vranic’s career and Czechoslovakia: Raymond “Ray” Kroc, is an American businessman of Czech origin - his parents moved to USA from Stupno, a small village close to Plzen (Pilsen), where the family ran a small pub. Raymond Kroc built a small-scale McDonald’s Corporation, and later took it over in 1954. This corporation later became the most successful fast food operation in the world and Kroc was included in Time 100 Most Important people of the Century. Also was a great supporter of research into diabetes and arthritis, particularly during his first marriage (Mr. Kroc was married 3 times - his second wife was John Wayne’s secretary). One of the pictures in Dr. Vranic’s office shows a group of people in a country setting. They are diabetes scholars assembled at the Kroc ranch in California and one of them is Ray Kroc’s brother. Thus, Mladen organized the first exercise and diabetes symposium. At that time, exercise was not considered of primary importance with this disease. This meeting and subsequent meetings, provided the definitive proof that exercise with regulation of diet, can not only improve, but prevent the onset of diabetes. Paradoxically, he recently discovered that while continuous stress deteriorates diabetes, adaptation to repeated stresses can also prevent diabetes.

From his early days, Mladen was exposed to and loved Czech music such as, Dvorak, Smetana, and especially more recent Czech operas by Leos Janacek. And it was fantastic to listen in Toronto, to the Slavic music conducted by Karel Ancerl. Finally, the novels of Milan Kundera, were similar to his own thoughts about the relationship between the immigrants and their native country.
Yet, come to think of it, there was one more encounter between Dr. Vranic and things Czechoslovak: last year Toronto Czech television Nova vize screened a documentary film on Dr. Vranic’s life and work. And of course, one day he may deliver lectures at universities in Prague and in Bratislava.
 

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Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

The Government of the Czech Republic has decided to close down our 90 year old Consulate General of the Czech Republic in Montreal on March 31. 2010

For 90 years the Czech Consulate in Montreal, a landmark and relevant member of the diplomatic community in Canada and Montreal in particular, has efficiently provided consular services and placed its substantial cultural, educational, humanitarian and scientific resources, not only for the disposition of Czechs and Canadians, but also for persons and institutions of a wide array of nationalities from the rest of the world.

Furthermore its staff has been awarded various honors, the most recent granted to the present Consul General, The Honorable Ms. Jaroslava Jeslinkova, Woman of the Year 2009 by the Fédération des Caisses Desjardins du Québec.

Since the Czech Consulate in Montreal serves British Columbia, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Québec, its closing would be an unfortunate loss for the options and opportunities which the Czech Republic represents in the Montreal Czech Consulate’s geographic entourage.

On January 21, our Czech organizations in Montreal opened a petition on-line (in Czech) against the closure, which can be signed at: http://www.petitiononline.com/PeticeGK/petition.html

Up to now we received over 1000 signatures (including from English or French speaking people who do not understand Czech).

On January 26. we sent an Open letter and petition to the Czech government, and on January 27. we notified some of the Czech media.

On February 8, we also opened our petition in French, which can be signed at: http://www.petitiononline.com/mtlcr/petition.html

On February 12, we also opened our petition in English, which can be signed at:

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/mtlcz/petition.html

PLEASE , HELP US TO SAVE OUR CONSULATE IN MONTREAL AND SIGN IT.

You don’t have to be a Czech nor a Canadian, people of many nationalities have already added their name to the list and are proud of having done so - besides one day you or someone in your family might need their services.

All you have to do is click or paste the link at the bottom of the page to your browser, filling in your name and, while it is not obligatory, also your city of residence. Your e-mail address will remain invisible.

You may wish to ask friends and family members, each one individually, to also support this worthy cause.

Czech and Slovak Association of Canada - Montreal Branch,
and other Czech organizations in Montreal

Česká verze ZDE

Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

Author: Josef Čermák (CzechFolks.com PLUS)

Josef Čermák is one of our frequent contributors. Throughout the last 8 months, he has written many articles about our community in Canada and other stories that many Czech and Slovak expatriates relate to. This time his story has a sad tone to it as he announces the death of his friend, Joseph Ctirad Vrana, and one of the Czech immigrants in Canada. Click on the image if you would like to read his personal message.

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Česká verze ZDE

Photo for CzechFolks.com © Marie Zieglerová

Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

Author: Antonin Vaclavik (CzechFolks.com PLUS)

(Translated by Helena Kaczérová)

There are not many countries and nations in the world today which can still boast, of such rich folk art as that peculiar to Czechoslovakia and its peoples. Its immense wealth, endless variety of form, colors – sometimes bright, sometimes soft – its remarkablemony and fineness of work, have won for the art of the Czech and Slovak people the admiration of all who have met with it.

This admiration was directed first and foremost at decorated textiles. The brilliant costumes which blossom forth Sunday after Sunday on our village greens are unforgettably engraved in the minds of all who have seen them. Equally effective were the plain costumes of the ploughmen in their simple shirts and the reapers in their snow-white, loose-fitting hempen costumes, which today are giving way more and more to the blue overalls of tractor-drivers.

It has often been emphasized that the Czech and Slovak people have a special national gift for creating these gems of beauty, an instinctive feeling for harmony of color and form from which the splendor of their costumes and embroideries springs.

But it was not only an instinctive feeling which created this charming display. It was the result of long winter days and evenings in which mothers taught their daughters to spin, weave, embroider and name motifs, long hours during which the experience gained by patient search and trial was passed on from to generation. Here one sees traces of the long historical development of the Czechoslovak countries – this spiritual and commercial cross-roads of Europe – and of their peace-loving people. These showed their love for freedom and their high cultural level as long ago as the early Middle Ages, when they formed the Great Moravian Empire, embracing within its borders the larger of Central Europe. A number of routes crossed here, connecting the countries of the east with those of the west, the Mediterranean in the south with the Baltic in the north. Great Moravia maintained close relations with Byzantium, from which the Great Moravian prince Rostislav finally sent for „the men of the Slav tongue, Constantine and Methodius“, from Salonica, to preach Christianity. All this had its effect on the history of the country, rich in natural resources and further enhanced by the industriousness of its people. Its later history, too, is full of both glory and suffering: witness the famous Hussite period, when the Czech people showed the whole world the way to liberation from physical and mental slavery, and the Dark Age which followed the Battle of the White Mountain, when the people groaned under the unbearable burden of serfdom and spiritual imprisonment.

Along with the spirit of the people developed their art. The ornamentation of textiles is only one small part of the whole broad field of Czech and Slovak folk art, which in several regions of the country has been preserved in an unusual range and variety of forms and materials. Thus there are the representational toys, ornaments and various practical articles made from scraps of maize ears, straw, and mother-of-pearl; man techniques are known for decorating articles made of wood; the rich ornamentation of floors and village greens by pouring water or sprinkling sand by hand has been preserved, as well as the rich polychrome of exterior and interior folk architecture; pottery and textile art is also still alive.

None of these branches can be disregarded if we wish to understand folk textiles. Between the decoration of fabrics and all the varied fields of folk art mentioned above there is a close connection; the motifs pass from one field to another but are adapted to new material. Many elements are thus retained for a number of centuries, and some forms even have their origin far back in antiquity, when they were connected with magical, sacrificial, augural and other non-artistic applications.

Textile art consists mainly in fabrics, embroideries, laces, and various home-dyed and home-printed materials.

This book primarily deals with some representative types of embroidery, at the present time the most highly developed and best preserved branch of folk art in the country. And as we are chiefly concerned with embroidery as a form of artistic expression, we shall deal with the question of materials, colours, ornament and the genesis of some embroidered articlles, and with their makers.

* * *

The present book of  Univ.  Prof. Antonín Václavík „Textile Folk Art“ is one of his historical significant books. This book is following achievement of his science books as Luhačovské Zálesí and Podunajská dědina.

Textile Folk Art is act of contribution on European Arts and for ethnic of Czech, Moravian and Silesian customs and habits.

The book has been issue by Publishing House Atelier IM Luhačovice by co-operation with Senator Mrs. Jana Juřenčáková.

Format of the book: A4 – 205 x 285 mm, Pages: 384 (32 pages  in colour)

Celebrate in honour of this book was realized  2009 of October.

We are preparing  the booklet of memories to Antonín Václavík. We claim his students to write theirs remembers on Antonín Václavík to the Publishing House Atelier IM Luhačovice.

Česká verze ZDE

Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

Author: Josef Cermak (CzechFolks.com PLUS)

The author of the book “Czechoslovakia: The State That Failed”, Mary Heinmann, is an American historian teaching at the Strathclyde University in Scotland. Her book was published by the Yale University Press.

According to the review (an example of how reviews should be written) in the Economist (Nov.21, 2009), Ms Heinmann sees the former Czechoslovakia as a political entity which was born out of trickery and died in failure; as an artificial creature, essentially a fraud, and the wily duo responsible for the fraud, Tomas Masaryk and Edward Benes, who duped the victorious Western allies into creation of a new country, which ignored the interests of all ethnic groups (particularly the Germans) except Czechs and Slovaks; its treatment of the Sudeten Germans in the first republic as the ultimate cause of the first Czechoslovak republic’s downfall and (together with reparations imposed on Germany) in large part responsible for the Second World War; following the Munich agreement, it engaged in anti-Semitism, which - in her view - was simply continuation of existing tendencies; and the work of Edward Benes and Jan Masaryk during the Second World War she sees as a story of Czech guile and Western gullibility, while describing the three postwar years before the communist seizure of power as a horrible period of racial revenge, rape, robbery and deportation inflicted on guilty and blameless Germans alike. And the Prague Spring was simply a by-product of a factional fight in the Communist Party.

The Economist reviewer mentions the Czech music, literature and “glorious architecture”, as well as the three betrayals of Czechoslovakia by its Western allies (1938, 1948, 1968) as the ‘hooks’ explaining the West’s sympathy for Czechoslovakia. He gives Ms. Heinmann credit for excellent research, he acknowledges her right “to highlight the messy opportunism in the breakup of the Habsburg empire”, He agrees that Czechoslovakia was an artificial creature “but so, in the end, are all countries.” And this is what he has to say on the Czech treatment of Germans and Jews: “The inter-war Czechoslovakia treated Germans badly. But it was still a far more attractive country in terms of civil rights (for example in the treatment of Jews) than any of its neighbors, especially Hitler’s Germany.” He finds the postwar punishment of the Germans deplorable and the Czechoslovak Communists possibly exceptionally revolting (”but the democrats were often magnificent”)His conclusion: Yes, Czechoslovakia was a state that failed. But only to a point; the story of the revival of the Czech language in the 19th century deserves more than mockery; when describing the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, “the reader can almost hear her applauding”; it does not help her book to be spiteful; the Czechs an Slovaks have much to be ashamed of. But also much to be proud of.

I don’t intend to read Ms. Heinmann’s book: at 85, I have no time for spiteful books. Nor will I try to argue with her. Instead, I’ll offer views of men, who are familiar with the subject Ms. Heinmann is writing about (and include a few of my own).

On Czechoslovakia -
Professor S. Harrison Thomson (University of Colorado) in an article published in “University of Toronto Quarterly”, July, 1949: ” It had a scant twenty years of existence. Yet in that time, with the many faults of which Masaryk was perhaps more conscious than any other, it wenr further toward the goals he set in his philosophy of life than any other state in our Western political history. We cannot in fairness demand more than that of a people”.

On Tomas Guarrigue Masaryk
George Bernard Shaw saw him as the only man capable of being the President of a United States of Europe.
Winston Churchill writes about him as the “great Masaryk”.
S. Harrison Thomson (in “University of Toronto Quarterly”, July, 1949): ” There is no man in the history of modern civilization who better exemplifies the ideal of Plato’ philosopher-king than Thomas Masaryk, first President of the Czechoslovak Republic…Yet he came from one of the smaller and almost unknown peoples of Europe…But size is not quality and history ultimately judges quality. Fifth century Greece was small, even in its own day, but it produced men and ideas, a society, and a culture we humbly envy and accept today…”

On Edward Benes
Winston Churchill (in “Closing the Ring”): “In all his thoughts and aims he consistently sustained the main principles on which Western civilization is founded, and was ever true to the cause of his native land, over which he presided for twenty years. He was a master of administration and diplomacy. He knew how to endure with patience and fortitude long periods of adverse fortune. Where he failed - and it cost him and his country much - was in not taking a violent decision at the supreme moment. He was too experienced a diplomatist, too astute a year-to-year politician to realize the moment and stake all on victory or defeat”
Margaret McMillan (Paris !919) describes him as a man who, though not charismatic, by sheer hard work achieved much for his country

On Jan Masaryk
William Shirer (in “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: a history of Nazi Germany”): Following Neville Chamberlain’s announcement in the House of Commons on September 28, 1938 that he would accept the Munich Agreement (greeted by wild throwing of order papers in the air and many people being in tears), Winston Churchill begged to differ: We have suffered a total, unmitigated defeat. Jan Masaryk asked Mr. Chamberlain and the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, if Czechoslovakia would be invited to Munich. Both men replied in negative. Masaryk’s response (perhaps the noblest ever made by a representative of a state, which had just been abandoned by its allies): “If you sacrificed my nation to preserve the peace of the world, I would be the first to applaud you. But if not, gentlemen, God help yours souls.”

On anti-Semitism in inter-war Czechoslovakia
By all accounts, in the period between the two wars, Prague was the centre of a probably unrepeatable cultural milieu, during which Czech, Jewish and German cultures coexisted in creative peace. Men like Franz Kafka and Max Brod formed the Prague Circle, which met at the Arco café where they were often joined by Franz Werfel and E.E. Kisch. Brod helped his German writing friends, Franz Werfel as well as Franz Kafka, to reach the world audience, at the same time introducing to the German public Jaroslav Hašek’s The Good Soldier Schweik and Leoš Janáček’s music.
Similarly affirming view about life in Masaryk’s Czechoslovakia came from composer Oskar Morawetz, and more recently from two of the only one hundred survivors of the Nazi concentration camp in Terezin, George Brady (who inspired the book (and now also a movie), “Inside Hana’s Suitcase”, and
John Freund (the author of such books as “Once Again” and “Udolí stínů smrti “/The Valley of the Shadows of Death/ and participant in the documentary film “I Will Not Die”).

On Jews and Czechoslovakia After the Munich Agreement
If it were true that, after the Munich Agreement, Czechoslovakia engaged in anti-Semitism, it would be difficult to explain why - when the Czechoslovak National Council in London, headed by President Benes, called upon army reservists in allied and neutral countries to enlist - many Jews, including some 2,000 Czech Jews in Palestine, enlisted in the Czechoslovak army units with the Allied Middle East forces, constituting, in fact, a majority in these units; and similarly, in some units of the Czechoslovak Division later established in the Soviet Union, up to 70% of the members were Jews.

On punishment of the Sudeten Germans after the war
I agree with the Economist reviewer that the punishment of the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia after the war was deplorable, even though no punishment visited on the Sudeten Germans comes close in scale and brutality to the actions of the Nazi: all men in villages executed and their homes burnt (in Czechoslovakia, for example, Lidice and Lezaky), millions executed or more slowly killed in concentration camps. In the case of the Jewish population the numbers are numbing: the number of Jews deported from Bohemia and Moravia - 80,614; the number of Jews who died in Theresienstadt - 6,392; the number of Jews who were murdered in extermination camps - 64, 172. At the end of the war some10,000 Jews registered as returning deportees. Of the Jews who had not been deported, 5,201 were either executed, committed suicide, or died from natural causes and 2,800 survived…

I agree with the Economist reviewer that the Czechs and Slovaks - like everyone else - have much to be ashamed of, but also much to be proud of.
I beg to suggest that the Germans have much to be proud of, but also - particularly in the twentieth century - much, much to be ashamed of.